WSLB Static: Tales of Trouble and Memories

If there was ever an icon of Ogdensburg, other than the Golden Dome, it was WSLB radio, perched right there on the AM side at 1400. It kicked off in 1940, standing proud with a 400-foot tower on the east side of town, its blinking orange-red beacon visible for miles around. This wasn’t just some pipsqueak operation, either—WSLB’s signal, blasting out at 1000 watts by day and 250 by night, blanketed the North Country, sneaked its way into southern Ontario, and, on the right kind of night, if the wind and the atmosphere cooperated just so, you could even pick it up in the Adirondacks. Now that, my friends, is reach - more than a lawyer with a promising asbestos suit. It boggles the mind to think of how many car radios, kitchen radios, and bedside clock radios were tuned to WSLB at all hours, delivering the news from guys like George Mack, the voice of news for an entire generation. But the news was only part of the magic. No, WSLB was a grand stage, and at center stage were radio personalities like Bruce Dana and John Astolfi, with their morning shows full of corny jokes, school cancellations, and just the right amount of local gossip. Other personalities were Mark Schneider, Gene Young, Rick Defranco, and Uncle Alvin. You remember Chris Coffin’s “Feedback” show?

And then, there were the contests—oh, the contests! "Be the 10th caller and win tickets to see the Beach Boys at the New York State Fair!" and so many others. My brother Mike even made his mark in the legendary "So You Want to Be a DJ" contest, where some wide-eyed hopefuls got their moment of glory, manning the controls and spinning their favorite records for the adoring masses. Mike got his shot, stepping up to the mic like a seasoned pro—at least in his mind.

Remotes— live, on-the-spot personalities helping to kick off an event like the grand opening of a brand-new Hackett’s store or a flashy new car dealership rolling out the red carpet, were also part of the roster. The very presence of a WSLB van and a man in a headset could turn a ribbon-cutting into a full-fledged spectacle.

And let us not forget my bud, Ed LaComb—better known to his legions of nighttime listeners as “Fast Eddy.” He ruled the request hour on weeknights, where young lovers, secret admirers, and the heartbreak club all had their moment to send out a song. If you were smitten, you might dedicate Styx’s “Babe”; If you had been cruelly cast aside, Alice Cooper’s “Go to Hell” was waiting in the wings. No matter your emotional state, Fast Eddy had a song for you.

That was WSLB—more than just a station, it was the pulse of the town, the ever-present voice crackling through the dashboard speaker as you cruised down Ford Street, humming from the kitchen as your mom made dinner, or got your day going with a cup of coffee before heading off to work. It was, in many ways, the voice of Ogdensburg itself.

Yes, back in the golden age of radio—the real radio, mind you, where some half-asleep guy in a dimly lit studio actually had to place a needle on a record and hope to high heaven it didn’t betray him—there was a sacred, unwritten rule among disc jockeys. If nature called, you put on a long song - preferably, one long enough to cover whatever urgent business needed tending to.

For me, that go-to lifesaver was Peter Frampton’s “Do You Feel Like We Do?” A sprawling, talk-box-infused epic that stretched out over a solid fourteen minutes—an eternity in radio time. It was from his live album, the one that sold roughly the population of a small country, and more importantly, it gave a man ample opportunity to answer the call of nature without leaving dead air - the radio equivalent of fire on a ship.

So, one night, in the dim glow of the studio lights (yes, for a brief time, yours truly was a DJ), nature did indeed summon me. And I, in turn, summoned Frampton. The record spun, the needle dropped, and I took off like a shot down the hall to the station’s tiny, overworked restroom.

Now, let me tell you, this wasn’t a quick pit stop. No, sir. This was a full-fledged event. The kind where you sit down and instantly know you’re going to be there a while. The kind that only follows a hearty helping of mom’s chili—chili so packed with fiber you could mold it into a sturdy Adirondack chair.

Luckily, the station had a speaker in the bathroom. A convenience for the on-air talent, though mostly used to make sure things were still running smoothly while one was… otherwise engaged. And things were, indeed, running smoothly—until they weren’t.

I’m mid-process, fully committed, when suddenly, through the tinny little speaker, I hear it—a skip: “Do You Feel Like We Do, Do, Do, Do, Do, Do…”

Oh, no.

Now, there’s panic, and then there’s the specific, sweaty kind of panic that overtakes a man when he realizes his entire listening audience is currently trapped in an infinite Frampton loop while he is—shall we say—indisposed while he is deposed making a deposit.

And let me tell you, in that moment, there were two things I knew for certain: Frampton wasn’t going to fix himself, and I was in no condition to make any sudden movements.

For a full, agonizing two minutes, the world outside my tiny tiled purgatory was treated to the most avant-garde remix ever heard on FM radio. The kind of thing that, in another decade, some overenthusiastic college DJ might have tried to pass off as experimental.

Finally—finally—I was in a position to, quite literally, wrap things up. I rocketed out of that stall, yanked my pants up in record time (a feat deserving of its own Olympic category), and sprinted back to the booth.

I slapped on my headphones, cracked open the mic, and with all the professional poise I could muster, announced: “Well, there you have it, folks—the rare and never-before-heard Peter Frampton remix of ‘Do You Feel Like We Do?’ A once-in-a-lifetime experience! And keeping the ‘Do’ theme going, up next, The Police with De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da!”

And just like that, I was a genius.

At least, that’s what I told myself.